The present invention relates to a perpendicular recording magnetic head and a magnetic disk storage apparatus which incorporates the same.
In a magnetic disk apparatus, data on a recording medium is read or written by a magnetic head. In order to increase the capacity of the magnetic disk storage, the areal density has to be increased. However, in the conventional longitudinal recording method, the thermal fluctuation in medium magnetization prevents one from achieving the higher areal density. A solution to this problem is to employ a perpendicular recording method whereby the recorded magnetizations are aligned in the direction perpendicular to the medium.
The perpendicular recording method is available in two types: one type uses a double-layered perpendicular medium having a soft underlayer (SUL) and the other type uses a single-layered perpendicular medium having no soft underlayer. When a double-layered perpendicular medium is used as a recording medium, it is necessary to use a single-pole type head which has a main pole and an auxiliary pole for recording. In this case, higher field intensity can be applied to the medium.